3 Mistakes to Avoid with Marketing Automation

Marketing automation has finally enabled marketers to attain the legendary 1:1 ratio for content marketing. Due to its ability to collect and analyze huge troves of customer data, marketing automation allows the savvy marketer to tailor and target their marketing in a way that was previously impossible. It’s no surprise then that marketing automation has been met with extensive adoption among marketing departments in all sorts of business, from the Fortune 500 all the way down to many mom-and-pop shops.

Yet even though the popularity of marketing automation in on the rise a number of people are still not maximizing its potential, or are simply using it incorrectly.

Here’s a brief list of some of the common pitfalls to avoid when implementing or working to improve your marketing automation plan.

1. Always Be Learning: E ven if you’ve worked with marketing automation in the past that doesn’t mean that you’ve perfected your knowledge. When implementing a new system, or working to improve your skills, you must keep an open mind. This is difficult for many companies, as highly educated workers are notoriously resistant to learning new systems (especially when they’re comfortable with the current system).

Marketing automation is nearly worthless when users are unaware of the most effective way to implement and utilize it.

Make learning your marketing automation interesting and beneficial for your employees and they’ll be much more likely to utilize it correctly in the future.

2. Rework Your Systems: Many of the systems that businesses have had in place for years were initially designed as workarounds for many of the problems that marketing automation now solves. It is for this reason, and several others, that simply slapping a marketing automation tool over existing processes is not a good idea.

A much better strategy involves taking advantage of the opportunity to reevaluate all of your existing systems, streamline them and make them better. You can ensure that your processes work well with your new automation system and work out any kinks that have arisen over the years.

3. Create New Content: Marketing automation needs great content to function correctly. Content creation is nothing new, it’s been around in one form or another since the late 90s, but that certainly doesn’t mean that nothing has changed.

Marketing automation allows you to tailor your content in a way that has never been possible before. Marketers can actually learn about and evaluate their leads in real time, and their content should grow and evolve throughout the buyer’s life cycle.

Use your marketing automation tool to evaluate leads and determine what point in the buying cycle they’re currently in. Then use this information to craft specific content aimed directly at their specific situation. This leads us back to that Holy Grail of marketing: the 1:1. This is an incredibly powerful tool when used correctly, so don’t underestimate its usefulness.

If you can follow these three tips when implementing and tweaking your marketing automation you’ll be amazed by the strides you’ll see in your marketing endeavors. This will lay a solid foundation for all of your future marketing plans and marketing automation efforts.

If you have any questions just drop us a line in the comments, or visit us at TheMissionSuite.com and send us an email to learn more about how The Mission Suite can assist with your business’ marketing automation.